Tag Archives: mystical turn

From time to time it’s important to take a step back from the detail work of theory-building in order to catch hold of the big picture of what you’re doing. I’ve offered up some wide-ranging ideas on such topics as consciousness, spirituality, post-theism, and human self-actualization, and now I’ll try to bring together the major sight lines of a larger vision.

Backing up conceptually as far as we can brings us to the origins of our present universe. Contemporary cosmology (study of the cosmos) is coming ever closer to a grand unified theory (GUT) that can account for the flaring-forth of energy into the most basic constituents of matter – in an event (or ‘singularity’) popularly known as the Big Bang. Since the fabric of space-time is thought to have emerged at this point, there is no way for scientists to determine when (i.e., at what moment in the past) this occurred, but they have calculated the age of our universe to be somewhere around 14 billion years old.

In my diagram I have represented this primordial transformation of energy crystallizing into the subatomic latticework of matter as the elementary stage of the universal process (or ‘universe’ for short). As I will continue to use this convention of stages, it’s important to understand that I don’t regard a stage as merely a formative period in the historical past that has been left behind. In addition to thinking of it as a previous era in the course of change, I’m using ‘stage’ in its spatial connotation as well, as a supporting platform for ongoing progress. In other words – and this should not come as a surprise – the elementary stage in the rise of our present universe is still very active, providing the energetic and material support to what we’ll look at next.

Stage 2 of the process (comprised of levels 3 and 4) is named the evolutionary stage, since this is when (and where) life first emerges. Technically speaking, the term ‘evolution’ should be reserved for the adventure of life (on our planet and possibly elsewhere) and not for the quantum dynamics at work in the energetic transformations of matter. Life introduces something unique and unprecedented in the way it ‘rolls out’ (or evolves) into more adaptive and complex organisms over time. Organic names the basic life-force, while sentient is how the evolution of life has gradually produced organisms that are more aware, responsive, and engaged with their environment.

At Stage 3 is where a uniquely human form of consciousness makes its appearance. Ego is Latin for ‘I’, referring to that separate center of personal identity which is both a construct of social engineering and the agent of social development. Our animal nature as human beings tracks downward into the instincts and urgencies of survival, while ego ‘sets the stage’ for a transpersonal breakthrough to spirituality and higher wisdom.

A critical condition of this breakthrough experience is provided in the developmental achievement of ego strength, evident in a personality that is stable, balanced, and unified. This threshold (at level 5, egoic) is where a lot of my blog posts focus in, since a lack of ego strength – presenting in a neurotic tangle of insecurity, attachment, and inflexible convictions – is at the root of much of our suffering. I’ve frequently pointed out how some forms of religion, particularly of the theistic type, use this neurotic tangle to promote dogmatism, bigotry, redemptive violence, and otherworldly escapism.

Let’s assume for now that ego strength is achieved. What’s next? The transpersonal level opens in two distinct paths of spirituality, one leading inward to what I call the grounding mystery, and the other outward to the turning mystery. The grounding mystery (or more philosophically, the ground of being) is not something else underneath it all, but the creative source of consciousness within us. In other words, you don’t go looking for it out in the world – or rather, you might try to find it in the world but your quest will come to frustration. This is why the mystical turn utilizes a variety of practices and methods for conducting an inward descent of ego release to the mystery within.

A second transpersonal path takes an ethical turn, beyond ego but this time in the direction of an ascending involvement in ever-larger horizons of participation. In this case, personal identity does not drop away, as on the mystical path, but instead serves our upward leap into genuine community where ego doesn’t dissolve but connects in relationship with others. Historically, the quality of this connection proceeds in correlation with our cultural representations of the divine ideal (summarized in such virtues as creativity, benevolence, equanimity, and wisdom), which it has been the responsibility of organized religion to depict in myth, art, liturgy, and theology. (For the reasons given earlier, this responsibility of religion hasn’t been fully understood or consistently fulfilled.)

As it follows these two distinct transpersonal paths, spirituality advances our quest for a deeper center and a higher purpose. Just as our center in sentience is deeper than our center in personal identity, progress in this direction also opens our ethical considerations to a correspondingly larger horizon – beyond just ‘me and my own’ to all sentient life. The higher purpose in this case is not a set of orders legislated from above (we have already moved into post-theism at this point), but the more far-reaching principles that concern our life together with all living things on this planet. What is our responsibility to the greater community of life?

My general theory regards the cultural stage of human evolution as trending inevitably into transpersonal realms of awareness and action. While still only a relative few have achieved this breakthrough – whether held back by their own neurotic entanglement or by social institutions (e.g., family, class, religion) that are getting in the way – all the signs are indicating a planet-wide spiritual awakening. The counterforces will not likely fade away gently, however, but can be expected to redouble their efforts in holding us captive.

Insecurity, selfishness, hatred, and terror cannot be overcome by violence. We must transcend them, which we do by acknowledging them, understanding them, and then simply letting them go.

I promised myself that I would pick up where I left off in my last post, which was at the point of having broken through the consensus trance that holds individuals under the spell of groupthink. As I explained, consensus trances are seductive forces in your life because they provide the (feeling of) security that you’ve needed from the moment you were born. (See Life Outside the Consensus Trance for background.)

To the degree that your family system wasn’t safe and nurturing, you compensated by attaching yourself to whomever or whatever could keep you from falling headlong into the abyss – referring to the dark and fathomless urgency of your anxious state. You could survive and stay clear of this eventuality so long as the object of your attachment didn’t abandon you, become displeased with you, or change from what you desperately needed her (or him or it) to be for your sake.

To keep her close, you unconsciously adopted her general mood in life, her outlook on reality, the particular beliefs she held, and the manner in which she engaged with (or disengaged from) the world around you. So there you were: secure in the familiarity of each other, co-dependently attached, and firmly locked inside the convictions of what you both knew for certain. This mutual bond operated as a collective consciousness (even though there may have only been the two of you at first), wrapping the construct of your shared world around you like an illusion, which it was. And your inability to distinguish between the way things appeared to you and how they were in reality meant that you were under a delusion as well.

From this quiet nursery scene, the same mystifying trance spread outward as you got older – not out into reality, but farther across the social landscape with the enlarging horizon of your carefully managed world. Strangely your adolescent and adult relationships seemed to repeat many of those early behaviors, especially whenever you felt unsure of yourself or threatened by something unfamiliar, or when your defenses got worn down by the daily stress of life. If you were attached to abusers as a young child, you found yourself irresistibly attracted to abusers in your adulthood. Whatever neurotic style had helped you adapt to those dysfunctional family dynamics back then, so that you could get at least some of what you needed, tends to turn on and take over when you find yourself under pressure today.

So my definition of the consensus trance adds to Tart’s characterization of the shared delusion of groupthink across the various memberships in which our personal identity (ego) is managed, to include also the persistence and reactivation of earlier trances when our views of self and reality were just starting to emerge. If the consensus trance of a particular partnership or tribe only held its pattern by virtue of present conditions alone, it would be much easier to break (if we cared to). But in fact, these patterns, and the curtain they drape over awareness, are energized by much older and deeper (i.e., more primitive) impulses – reaching back behind our rational higher self to our emotional inner child, and even into the visceral urgencies of our animal nature.

Our full liberation from the consensus trance will involve an awakening of spiritual intelligence, to the ‘power within’ and the ‘truth beyond’ the self-world construct of personal identity. The critical question, of course, is how. If we are so far under the spell, how do we stand any chance of being set free? Well, we might ‘graduate’ or take our exit from a web of relationships in the normal process of growing up and moving on. Or something can happen that shocks us momentarily from our trance state: a crisis or setback can disrupt the pattern, or a primary attachment might call it quits, walk out on us, or pass away. We need to remember, though, that even in such instances the insecurity and cravings that held us in that particular co-dependency will likely drive us to find another just like it.

The good news is that we don’t have to wait for a shock event to wake us up. Meditation practices of various kinds have been used for centuries with the intention of assisting consciousness past the construct of personal identity. As this construct has two principal aspects, self and world, a practice of ‘getting over yourself’ can proceed along an inward descent (the mystical turn) whereby self is released to its grounding mystery (‘the power within’), or along an outward ascent (the ethical turn) that lifts awareness beyond “my world” to the higher wholeness of a universal order (‘the truth beyond’). This higher inclusion prompts us to reconsider how we ought to live, given that we are part of a much larger web of life.

It is wise not to wait for the jolt of disillusionment, but instead to cultivate a more or less disciplined daily practice that will gradually strengthen the ego to the point where it is no longer the neurotic center of everything. When you go back to the partnerships and tribes that hold your identity contracts – those masks and performance scripts that define your place in the role-play of social interactions – you will be a more stable and creative influence than before. You won’t take everything personally. You’ll be able to catch the retributive reflex before it springs back against the insult or criticism that someone else just slapped on you, opening a space in the exchange where you can do something outrageous, creative, and kind instead.

The challenge for anyone waking up from the consensus trance is focused in finding creative ways to stay awake. Prepare yourself for the scolding glances and more direct resistance from those who are still under the spell. No one that is comfortably asleep enjoys the flood of light when bedroom curtains are flung open to the morning sun. You are not superior to them. You are not better than they are.

Who knows, but maybe your liberation has now placed you in position to be a servant of their freedom. Yes of course, you could take your light and get as far as possible from the frustrations of this or that relationship. Or you might work out your salvation in a way that shares your light with the rest of us, helping us as well get just a little farther along the path.